Log:Like Teaching A Zeltron To Lie

Hyperspace Liars

OOC Date: May 4, 2016
Location: The Aristocrat
Participants: Stavros, Zhu Yan, Siya

Long story short: Zhu Yan tries to teach Siya and Stavros how to lie, because maybe clandestine work requires that!

The whole story:

Stavros is in the pilot's seat, surveying the instruments as he waits for the rest of the Aristocrat's crew for this run to show up in the cockpit. Whether they have things to be stowed or wanted to look around, they aren't yet in the cockpit.

Per the visual scanners, no one is waiting outside the ramp, though, so he pushes the switch, and the ramp rises into the ship's neck. He punches on the repulsorlifts, and the landing gear retracts into its compartments, but he doesn't signal the hangar door to open - not yet. It may be overcautious, but he doesn't intend to risk Lowkeyyy's hangar any more than necessary: he will only open the door once everyone's up here.

Zhu Yan the Illustrious had impeccable timing. No sooner than Stavros was having his errant cautious thougts than Mister Jackass himself hauled ass into the fairly cavernous cockpit. The effects of his disguise as Captain Kergin were wearing off, the scar makeup had finally faded and his beard was growing back in. He was almost Zhu Yan again. And, since Yan is truly the most amazing pilot to ever exist and the galaxy actually revolves around him in some freak of physics, he didn't even bother with asking Stavros where to sit. Straight into the co-pilot's chair he went.

"Alright, boy!" he declared with wit and panache. "Today is the day where you learn how to make falsehoods!" Uh oh. When Zhu Yan says it's time for someone to learn something, dive for cover.

It takes time to go through the inky blackness of space. So, naturally people will get hungry. Before arriving, she had spent some time in the kitchen at home assembling a basket filled with a variety of goodies. She boards the craft, glancing about as she moves through. Inside the cockpit, she offers a bit of a smile to Stavros and Zhu. "Hey fellows." She glances around for a place to sit. Finding a chair, she settles down and settles the basket on her lap. "I hope noone minds that I brought some tasty bits for the trip."

It would be unnatural if the faux-Corellian didn't go straight to a pilot's seat. Stavros glances over. "Lying and flying at the same time?" He smiles. "That might be a little much for my first time, don't you think?" When he hears the cockpit door hiss open again, he looks over his shoulder, smiling wider at Siya. "If anyone has problems with snacks, they can leave the ship right now."

"This should be a boring run. It's to a place worse than Nar Shaddaa." He reaches over and presses a key on a little square that appears to have been glued onto the edge of the console, where it won't block anything. At the signal, the doors open. "You know its dimensions, Yan. It's still Corellian Engineering, just bigger and longer than you're used to." He puts his hands behind his head, leaning back against the seat (though the seat itself doesn't recline. "Want to take us out?" The doors finish opening. The stars beckon - or they would if they were visible right now. They're still beckoning; we just can't see it.

"So how do I start? Little white lies?" He looks at Yan curiously.

Zhu Yan looked at the controls. "Luckily for you, I'm a legend at both." Unlike most of Yan's boasts, he could back this one up. The controls were similar to his YT-2000, but a bit bigger and less custom. Less... TIE-like. Even so, pulling the flying phallus out was a simple task, and Yan did it like a professional.

"White lies? Nope. Fundamentals," he responded as he punched in a course to the atmosphere. He was doing the astrogation in his head too. "Fundamentally, every good lie is backed up by commitment to it. How good are you at being deadpan? Because tha... oh, tasty bits! Siya, you are the love of my life. Feed me." Clearly the way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

Siya blinks a little at the topic at hand. "Stavros, are you having him teach you how to lie?" She blinks at her fellow Zeltron. That just seemed unheardof! Of course, Stavros is a Zeltron enigma already. She decides it is really none of her business and the turns her attention to the basket in her lap. The flap of the basket is pulled back. "Well, Zhu. It all depends. Are you in the mood for sweet, tart, or savory?" She pulls out three bottles. Each has a clear, red fluid within.

Stavros thinks about Yan's question seriously. "I can avoid having much of an expression for a joke." This is partially true, but let's be honest, Stavros is "Usually an open book, though. You see what I feel and I feel what you see."

He smiles at Siya's words. He glances lazily at the instruments as he turns in his seat so she can see his crooked expression. "I'm not good at it, Siya, but there's only nine of us. Someday I'll have to lie my way out of something, or into somewhere. And I'd love something savory."

The Zeltron man holds up one finger from his left hand as he turns back to see the rapidly thinning atmosphere. "I might be hopeless at this, but think about it: if I am any good at it, if I get past any initial suspicion? Everyone knows Zeltrons are terrible liars." He grins at the space beyond them. "I've thought this through. If I look uncomfortable and say something, they're bound to think it's true. If- if I'm faking the right kind of discomfort, I guess?"

"The more sugar the better!" Yan answered Siya cheerily, though his eyes were locked forward as he took the ship out into orbit. "If you got anything glazed I will repay you in ways you cannot possibly begin to imagine." And so began the harmless yet merciless flirting.

But Yan wasn't here to flirt with Siya. He was here to teach Stavros how to lie. "You have to use what you have to your advantage. No harm in playing to a stereotype," he explained to the Zeltron in the pilot's chair. "But if you can pull it off flawlessly, no one will question it. Stereotypes. So. With that in mind, what do you think the best lie can be?"

Siya digs around a bit more. A little bowl with a lid is produced and she offers it towards Stavros. Inside is an assortment of home dried meats mixed with nuts. One of those bottles of clear red fluid is offered to him as well. "It is a curse of being who we are. I typically just use truth to my benefit."

Yan's order is not ignored. After Stav has taken his treat, she pulls out the next container, a long rectangular container. Siya actually gets a rather devious grin with this. "Careful with this Zhu, it will give you a big butt." She winks. The lid is pulled back to show an amazing pastry dish with homemade icing atop. She scoops out a huge roll and sets it on a plate. Napkins are provided as well as a fork, and a bottle of the hydrating fluid. No, it's not alcohol. Just some sort of berry drink.

Stavros accepts the dish from Siya with a smile and a murmured "Thank you," and the drink. There is not a cupholder armrest, but there _is_ a drink holder - down and to the left of the pilot's seat. That's where the berry drink finds a new home, as Stavros takes a half-mouthful of meat and nuts. His mouth is closed, but it still crunches. His expression is thoughtful. He swallows, then asks, "Is the best lie one that somebody already believes? Or what they want to believe? Or what requires the least thought to assume?" If he's got the right answer, he doesn't know it.

"That only works for less questioning types. You'll trip a red flag if you do it to anyone skeptical," Yan explained, accepting the box from Siya in one hand while punching coordinates into the navicomputer with the other. Multitasking! "The best lies are ones that you don't need to think to tell. As such, they're often built from a corrupted version of the truth." He pulled back the hyperdrive lever and the stars elongated, exploding into the spinning blue tunnel that was hyperspace. "Pop quiz. For both of you." He pulled the pastry out of the box and waved it around. "My ice sculpting lie, where I carry the ice to Tatooine and then carve it, winning belts and titles and women. Which part of that is true, and in what regard?"

Siya glances up at Yan as he asks that question. She takes her singular pastry and uses a fork to cut into it. Otherwise, it is a big mess. "I can see you just carrying ice to tattooine.." She says canting her head. "I find it harder to detect liars that actually believe their own lies. That is the hardest myself." She bites into the iced pastry, bits of frosting covering her lips.

Stavros exchanges a glance with Siya. Once she has answered, he raises one eyebrow. "It's true that Tatooine is hot enough to melt ice." The corner of his mouth twitches, ruining his deadpan expression for anyone paying attention. "Also I think you've probably been with a woman before." His face collapses into its natural 'resting happy face'. The smile persists even while he is drinking the berry concoction.

Now that he didn't have to fly the ship anymore, Yan could tuck into his pastry. He was eating a big bite of it when he got responses. "Mmmf," was his eloquent, well thought out response before he swallowed. "Ten points to Siya," he said, waving the pastry around. "I was indeed, hauling ice to Tatooine. But you only have..." he paused and put on a dramatic thoughtful look, "three fifths of the story. Ice to Tatooine. What are you missing?"

Siya beams and perks up at having been awarded ten points! A playful tongue is stuck out at her fellow Zeltron before she takes another bite of her roll. "Where did he carve the ice at?" She asks him with a chipmunk cheek.

Zhu Yan sighed and looked at the ceiling. Well, at the glass and hyperspace tunnel over his head. "No, no, no. You're both barking up the wrong tree. Let me narrow it down." His feet abruptly came off the console and he turned his chair to face both of the Zeltrons properly. "Remember my career, what I do for a living, and extrapolate from there. Ice is three fifths of what I was hauling. What are the other two?"

Siya blinks a little and she looks to Stavros. She rubs the beack of her neck as there is a perplexed look on her face. Though, she stops and looks at him. "Hookers and blow?" She inquires of him. "You said you won women.. were you toting passengers?"

"Belts, and... women?" Stavros does not appear to believe his own first answer. "Wait. Carving.... power tools? Or actual carvings?" The Zeltron frowns. "I don't know," he confesses. "I always thought that was a lie so flagrant it stuck in your head to reuse."

"Oh, no, I re-use the lie because it's hilarious," Yan explained after swallowing another bit of the pastry. "I don't expect anyone to believe it. But you're still way off the mark. Think laterally. Sideways. Think about the word 'ice', and how there's only three-fifths of it. What's it sound similar to? What do I do for a living?" Hopefully THAT would get them into thinking about the right thing.

Siya looks to Yan with her cheeks slightly puffed out, then swallows. "I am sorry. I am just not really sure. Perhaps you were actually toting water instead? People on Tattooine need water.."

"Wait wait wait." Stavros holds up a hand. "You were toting spice. It rhymes, so you remember. I'm with you, I think. And the rest of it is embellishment. But it had the true part that you can remember."

"Finally!" Yan cried out, like a man who was waiting in the queue for the bathroom. "Ten points to Stavros! I was hauling spice to Tatooine," he explained, waving the tiny bit of pastry around as some weird form of gesticulation. "It's not hard to say I was hauling ice. Everyone will believe you if you say it. Then I just added bullshit on top of it. Everyone questions the bullshit. Nobody questions the ice hauling. Get my drift?"

Siya blinks at this. "Oh.." She trails off. She shakes her head and furrows her brows. "Sounds like more work than what it is worth." She stuffs the last bit of pastry in her mouth and licks her fingers clean.

"Ah. The big lie." Stavros has as least heard of this technique. "So much to wade through that they never get there." He crosses his arms. "But actually hauling ice is unlikely enough people might expect it's not true - but they'll think it's a total fabrication, rather than just a little twist on the truth. They might not think you ever shipped anything to Tatooine at all."

He takes up some more nuts, sorting out the most crunchy ones. They are apparently his favorite. "But that lie is just to amuse. What about lying about something significant?" He pops the nuts in his mouth. Audible crunching follows.

"Same principle," Yan said, before popping the final bit of sugary big-butt goodness into his mouth and swallowing. "Corrupt the truth." That seemed to be the core of all his lessons. "If you don't have a propensity for making things up as you go, that core tenet will carry you at least some of the way." He fished around in the box again looking for more cholesterol in a bun. "If there's a hint of truth, or a way the lie is logical, it's easy to carry. Take ice to Tatooine for example. Water shortage, being a desert planet, and rich locals will pay for it. It basically tells itself. Then you start getting into advanced techniques, like turning the lie around and making them doubt ever distrusting you. A little bit of righteous indignation will get you everywhere."

Siya reaches into her basket and pulls out a wet nap. She cleans off her fingers, then dabs her lips. It is followed by a drink of that red beverage. She is listening to the words spoken, "See, I think I could do this. For me, I getnervous just because.. I am scared of being caught. It is difficult for me to lie when most of my life I was surrounded by empaths."

Stavros, on the other hand, looks more perplexed. "But - okay. To lie about who I am, then, I could say I was born on Zeltros. People expect that, and it's almost true. After that... it all falls apart. I could say I'm a dancer, but I don't have moves to back it up. Bartending, same thing. Gigolo... well, that is not going to help me in any way, most of the time." He throws up his hands. "I just use the truth to hide other truth. I own a tavern. Soon it'll be a club, too. Living stereotype."

"Which brings me to my next point," Yan said, finally finding another, smaller edible heart attack in that box of fun. "For anything more than off the cuff, lying is acting. The trick is in your performance." He turned and fiddled with a couple of dials on the controls, pulling up an indicator of their ETA to Tatooine. "First rule of acting, know your role. I did a lot of study into Thyferra and Xucphra Cartel when I went undercover at that party. It's a cover I use fairly often when I'm somewhere I'm not supposed to be. Plausible deniability is good too."

Siya listens to the continued lesson. She is still interested, but has fallen quiet with it all.

"Research. Okay." Stavros drums his fingers on the arms of his seat. "I guess, starting with 'what are plausible Zeltron career paths?' I really don't know. I've been in the dregs most of the time. Siya is the first other Zeltron I've actually gotten to know well."

"You're a masseuse," Yan said pointedly. It was pointedly because the smuggler was literally pointing at Stavros over in the other chair. "You have a cover right there. You used it at Interceptor's place to get in. Not hard. That's one." Om nom nom on the pastry a bit more, and, "Stop thinking in terms of Zeltrons and humans. Unless you're in the Empire, it doesn't matter." His words were a bit muffled from having a slightly full mouth. Chew your food, Yan.

Siya looks up to Stavros, "I could teach you some mad bartending skills. Then you could say you are a bartender. It wouldn't be a lie and could help you in your endeavors." A smile is offered to Stavros. "I know I pretty much fit the mold for being a Zeltron, but there are always ways to get around things." She ponders, "Though I have to wonder if you are actually skilled with massage.."

"But I am a masseuse! It makes it easier," Stavros says dryly. To Siya, he nods solemnly, his tone slyer. "Oh, I am." He gets to thinking. "So.... I could be a pilot. A trader. Because I am a pilot and a trader. Somebody's deputy- smart people like having someone who can read others and give them straight talk." He taps the chair arm again. "I guess I can research most anything... But a consistent cover would be nice." He reaches out for something unlikely but legitimate, something like- "A lawyer?" On the moon without laws.

"Prep is key. What about your ability to read a room?" Yan asked next, happily munching away on his pastry. He looked like he was having a good enough time trying to teach the man how to be a scoundrel.

The Zeltron man turns his head so that he can look sideways at Zhu Yan. "Read it for what? I'm okay with recognizing danger. Security vulnerabilities. And I can get an emotional sense of a place just by walking around." Stavros narrows one eye. "I don't think that's what you mean, though."

Zhu Yan shook his head. "Not what I mean," he agreed. He took another bite out of the pastry and swallowed, this time. It was rude to talk with your mouth full. "Who's interacting with who. Who's important. Who's not. Who can tug at the thread of your lies so you know to avoid them. That sort of thing."

"Oh." Stavros pushes out the skin beneath is lower lip with his tongue, as he thinks. "Yeah, but I tend to look at it differently. Who's distant by choice, and who's distant because they feel out of place? Who most appreciates the personal touch? Who needs to be introduced to whom?"

"I'm acting on the same info, you know? I just... haven't been looking at who has the potential to pierce my - cover. Because I've just been me." Stavros is going to have a problem with assuming new identities, it sounds like. "What about, like, assuming an _actual person_'s name and life and history? It'd be easier to fill in the details if you use someone's real story, right?"

"Nope," said Yan, pretty pointedly. "When you assume someone else's identity, you need to know everything about them in case you're tested." Like that time the gun-runners at Fresia were expecting a Twi'lek instead of little old Yan. That shootout was not fun for anyone involved. "Far easier to come up with an identity. Takes longer, but has a lot less chance of backfiring."

Stavros nods slowly. "Okay. Well- okay. I guess it's time to build a new me?" He frowns. "I also don't know who to try it out on. I'm not going to do it at the Blue Light, and on a job, it's- more important that we succeed than that I get practice."

"A good way to practice is just to make stuff up and see if you can keep a straight face," Yan explained, with a completely straight face. Funny, that. "You see me do it all the time. Lying is a practiced skill, and like many skills, it can degrade with disuse. Tell tall tales, make sithspit up, get people laughing. Once you become comfortable doing that, it all gets easier."

"I'm sure everyone on the team will appreciate me trying my efforts at deceit out on them," Stavros says wryly. "Have to start somewhere, I guess." He looks at Zhu Yan more intensely. "Sometime I need to be with you when you're doing a big, serious lie. I'm curious how you handle it. You know." He gestures vaguely at his own head. "Mentally. Emotionally."

"Should have been around when I was lying to tentacle-head. Whoooh, that was a rough one," Yan explained, leaning back in the copilot's seat. It was like recalling the memory was as exhausting as actually doing it again. "Had to feed the surprise and anger at not having what I needed back into the story. You'd have gotten a kick out of that one."

"Oh, I see - hm. You were surprised enough that you couldn't pretend not to be?" Stavros's eyes widened. "But you used it anyway. That's- almost honest. You know," he says, the blue tunnel they pass through overhead and in front of them nearly forgotten, "This reminds me of what Sjun Noh Aryk said in an interview I saw." He resettles his weight, adding as an aside, "Zeltron actor. Not just in Zeltros's cinema, either, and not always the expected role."

He raises his left hand palm up, as though balancing an apple on it. Mimicking the gesture from the interview seems to help him call it up. "Some guy asked, what's your secret? Why do you think you get asked for such different roles? He said, 'I don't act.'"

"That makes more sense to me now, I think," Stavros says thoughtfully. "I know how different sorts of people feel in different situations. I could be like them- if I could make myself feel the right thing at the right time."

"Sort of. I could have pretended not to be, but it worked better to act out what I was feeling. In this case, the truth sold the lie," Yan elaborated. He was looking at the hyperspace tunnel now. It was an unsettling thing, but Yan didn't mind. He was used to it. "Getting subsumed into character helps. It's an old acting technique my mentor taught me. But to me, the truth is a tool." He paused, then added, "It's also the excuse for a lack of imagination." THERE was the cheeky Yan grin again!

The Zeltron stares out the window, too, for maybe a minute. "Lucky you," Stavros says quietly, turning slightly to look back at Yan. "My mentor was only good for keeping me alive when people got angry. I had to figure out the rest on the go. It's pretty great how much you can learn about explosives from nooks in the planetary net." He swallows once, scans over the instruments, and then returns his gaze to Zhu Yan. "Any other starter tips?"

"Sure. Draw people into a story. People love to believe stories. Like, how did you get into the planetary net in the first place?" Yan advised, looking over at Stavros once he heard the swallow. What he'd said had made perfect sense. Entirely believable. But that swallow... "Also, lose the tell," he pointed out.

Stavros's grin is small. "I used a repurposed climate control terminal at the far end of the second home base's ventilation system. That part is true." The smile mostly fades. "But, yeah. He taught me everything. You use the planetary net to learn to make explosives, you'll either realize there are people posting fake guides as pranks - or you'll follow one, and blow up." People on Nar Shaddaa are bastards! "He was good. Very, very good." He raises an eyebrow. "How many demolitions experts do you know who died of old age?"

"Three," Yan responded pretty much immediately. His eyes went a little hazy, a practiced motion for when he wanted to look like he was calling up old memories. "Jonathan Grey was one. Corporate Sector anarchist. Died two years ago, one hundred years old." Time to pull out another name. "Gem Lightman, one of those Twi'lek ladies who never used her real name. Died twenty years ago. And..." he couldn't think up a third. Quick. Buy time. "Sithspit, I can't think of his name, but he did that... thing, on Commenor. You know the one? The Parliament building?"

"Can't say I keep up with politics," Stavros admits. "I think people would be disturbed at how many atrocities are technical masterpieces. No one wants to think about that part." He is suspicious of Zhu Yan because he is always suspicious of Zhu Yan's stories, but he doesn't have any thread to tug on to check - or access to a network for verification. "If the term 'hyperspace liar' isn't already a nickname, it should be. You can claim anything in a ship with a limited database when you're cut off from the rest of the galaxy."

"Claim? Sir, you wound me," Yan said, in a mock posh Coruscanti accent. "That I would ever actually provide the facts, such nonsense I cannot abide!" With the back of his hand to his forehead, he looked either offended or faint. Probably both. "But clearly they were very good demolitionists. No one's heard of 'em." Thumbs up!

"Taking refuge in obscurity," Stavros says with feigned scorn. "Theories that can't be proven wrong are always suspicious. If I've heard of even one of them, they must be real, and good, because they're famous." He smiles and shakes his head. "If I have not heard of them, it's because they're so good they're secret."

"Most people are idiots. You can get away with all sorts of fallacies as long as you're charming and convincing enough," Coming from the mouth of the charmless liar Zhu Yan, that was a bit rich. "Especially students. They'll agree with anything you say just to sound cool. But we aren't exactly scamming students." He paused and considered something else. "The other refuge is in audacity. Be so ridiculous, so daring, that even if they don't believe you, and they probably will because something so ridiculous can't be made up, they'll be off-balance while they try to comprehend what you've done."

"I think I've got to work up to that one," Stavros says, looking back at the instruments. Everything's green. "Get some practice on the everyday before I claim to be king of the Zeltros government-in-exile, and that I need your help to transfer a large sum of money off-planet before the Republic securities division freezes my account." All that said with a straight face. But he isn't trying to lie.

He clears his throat. "Also, this is sort of a shakedown cruise." Probably you mention that up front, right? "Moe's always done solid work for me, but if the hyperdrive needs more tuning, odds are good it will show up on ... this jump." No worries, though. Perfectly safe. Suddenly it makes more sense why he's watching the instruments so closely. It isn't like this is anywhere near his first hyperspace jump.

"You mean you can't feel the deckplates?" Yan asked, quizzically. That was weird. He thought everyone could do that. "I'd be feeling a lot of clunking from the aft if the hyperdrive were having problems. CEC drives have a tell." Just out of curiosity, he turned and looked back towards the rear of the ship, as though looking at the engines. "I can't hear any imbalances either. If she were gonna explode, she'd have exploded by now."

Stavros shakes his head. "If I were worried about that, we would never have left. But if the draw is abnormal or uneven, it could mess with another system." He shrugs. "I've never had a hyperdrive this fast before. But then, I haven't been flying too terribly long either. I figured between Hutt Space and Tatooine was a good time to let it run. Not like pickets are going to stop me, either place."

Zhu Yan looked up and around the controls and blinking lights with all the blinking and the flashing and the glowing diode things that looked like gems. Lights, man. None of them seemed out of the ordinary. "Operating within normal parameters for a..." he thought for a sec, "point seven five. It is a point seven five, right?"

Stavros confirms, "Point seven five. You'd think it would take more power than this, wouldn't you? This is more than twice the size of your freighter, but it surely isn't proportional."

"Proportional? Please. CEC engines are all the same size in the end. It's how you use them. You should know, you're flying a ship shaped like a giant phallus." Technically Yan was flying it right now. Technically no one was flying it. They were in hyperspace. But whatever!